Honor, the rank of colonel, and the command of a colony; the public, we
say, will reasonable conclude, that the governor is, without doubt, a
universal man, and that it is very natural that so superior a genius should
have set himself above many little weaknesses, which would have arrested
his flight, and which are proper for none but weak minds, for good people
who are made to creep on upon the common route, and to crawl on the
ground.

[48] The giving up of the colony did not take place till six
months after our shipwreck. It was not till the 25th of January, 1817, that
we took possession of our settlements on the coast of Africa.

[49] What would our good Major have said if he had known that our
Minister of the Marine, Mr. Dubouchage, had exposed himself in a far
greater degree, to the embarrassment of the species of shame, attributed to
him here, by confiding seven or eight expeditions to officers who do no
more honour to his choice and discernment, than the expedition to Senegal
has done.

Besides the Medusa, which was conducted so directly upon the bank of
Arguin, by the Viscount de Chaumareys, Knight of St. Louis, and of the
Legion of Honour, and in the intervals of his campaigns, receiver of the
_droits reunis_, at Bellac, in Upper Vienne, every body knows that the
Golo, bound from Toulon to Pondichery, nearly perished on the coast, by the
unskilfulness of the Captain, Chevalier Amblard, Knight of St. Louis, and
the Legion of Honour, who, in order not to lose sight of maritime affairs,
had become a salt merchant, near Toulon. Neither is the _debut_ of the
Viscount de Cheffontaine forgotten, who, on quitting Rochefort, whence he
was to sail to the Isle of Bourbon, put into Plymouth to repair his masts,
which he had lost after being three or four days at sea. Who does not know
that it would be in our power to mention more examples of this kind?

We spare the French reader these recollections, which are always painful;
besides, what could our weak voice add to the eloquent expressions which
resounded in the last session, in the chamber of deputies: when a member,
the friend of his country and of glory, pointed out the errors of the
Minister of the Marine, and raised his voice against those _shadows of
officers_ whom favor elevated to the most important posts. He represented,
with reason, how prejudicial it was to government, that the command of
ships and colonies should be given as caprice dictates, and to gratif